In an astonishing development, the largest corporation in the world in 2002, measured by sales, was Wal-Mart. The sales of the world's largest retailer exceeded that of former world leaders such as General Motors and Exxon. Retail companies represent 10% of the top 500 MNEs. This indicates that much more analytical attention needs to be directed to retail and other service-related business rather than just to manufacturing multinational enterprises (MNEs). In this chapter, the international dimension of retail organizations is discussed. Are these “global” businesses? If so, do they have a “global” strategy?

In the case of Wal-Mart, the answer to both questions is no. The data indicates that, while Wal-Mart has 26.5% of its stores outside of the United States, most of these are located in Canada and Mexico, its NAFTA partners. That is, Wal-Mart is a North American business, with only 9.6% of its stores being outside of its home region. In terms of revenue, only 16.3% of Wal-Mart's revenue is international, and, again most of this is in the North American region.

Yet, even otherwise well-informed analysts have discussed the nature of Wal-Mart's globalization and its use of global strategy. In a representative book, Govindarajan and Gupta (2001), devote all of chapter 3 (their first detailed case study) to an analysis of the “global” strategy of Wal-Mart. This type of approach is misguided. Wal-Mart is a regional business and has a regional strategy; it is a regional MNE, not a global MNE.